20 Best Books To Read Based On Their Opening Lines

Some of the best lines of a book are written at the very start. That's when you know if a book has managed to reel you in, or left you with too little fodder to go on by. And if you were ever to judge a book at all, let it not be by its cover; but, by its opening lines.

Here are 20 books which happen to have some of the best opening lines you'd ever read.

3. The End Of The Affair

4. The Napolean Of Notting Hill

Author: G. K Chesterton

“The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up.”

6. Catch – 22

7. Life Of Pi

8. A River Runs Through It

Author: Norman Maclean

“In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly-fishing.”

9. A Clockwork Orange

Author: Anthony Burgess

“That was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodooks what to do with the evening, flip dark chill inter bastard though dry.”